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Topic: Patent: 400 f/4, 300 f/4, 200 f/5.6 (Read 14396 times)

New Lens Formula Patents
A new 400 f/4L IS non-DO would probably be a very welcomed lens. However, it will probably depend on the price of the 200-400 f/4L IS 1.4x ($8000 I predict) as to whether or not it ever sees the light of day. The 200 f/5.6 is a strange one.

The other two lenses make perfect sense, but I think that people expecting the 400mm f/4 lens to be cheap are going to be in for a shock. Whilst I've no doubt that it would be cheaper than the 500mm f/4L IS II, I don't think it would be much cheaper than the 300mm f/2.8 IS II. I think that you'd be looking at a lens filling the US$3500 to US$4500 range that is at present dominated by Sigma, not in the price bracket of lenses like the current 300mm F/4L IS, 4oomm f/5.6L, 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6L IS.

That was my thought, but, it'd have to be like $2-300 for it even really sell, since the 200 f/2.8 is only an $800 lens. They've had a lot of success with the cheaper primes (50 f/1.8, 85 f/1.8, etc) for hobbyists, this could fill that same kind of void, but, I question how profitable it would be to sell a 200mm f/5.6 for less than $500.

But, they might just be beating others to the punch with the patent, even if they know they won't produce it.

A 200mm f/5.6 macro could make sense, within some limits. Other macro lenses tend to be f/2.8 to allow AF to work at closer focus distances, since at 1:1 macro the effective aperture of a f/2.8 lens is f/5.6, the nominal limit of phase AF. If you sacrifice close focus AF, then making the lens f/5.6 would make it significantly cheaper and lighter. Bear in mind the depth of field in macro is already very thin, most macro shots are stopped down, so I don't think the slow aperture will be an issue in this application. Overall I think it would be very niche though. Near macro it would be MF only, which is ok for most macro uses, but would you want to use a 200mm f/5.6 AF at further distances? Might as well make it MF only, and offer more than 1x magnification, like a long version of the MP-E65.

Given that the aperture closes up as you reach the minimum focusing distance (even though Canon doesn't report the change) starting at f5.6 would make this a very slow lens for macro work without a flash.

The other two lenses make perfect sense, but I think that people expecting the 400mm f/4 lens to be cheap are going to be in for a shock. Whilst I've no doubt that it would be cheaper than the 500mm f/4L IS II, I don't think it would be much cheaper than the 300mm f/2.8 IS II. I think that you'd be looking at a lens filling the US$3500 to US$4500 range that is at present dominated by Sigma, not in the price bracket of lenses like the current 300mm F/4L IS, 4oomm f/5.6L, 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6L IS.

I would have no problem dropping $3500 to $3800 for a high-quality 400mm f/4 L IS lens. that's still a huge step away from even the 300mm f/2.8 L IS II at 7K.